Metro Air & Heat

unknown

They had originally replaced the entire unit for heating and air conditioning. It was just a maintenance check. The service technician seemed knowledgeable. He showed me some issues and offered me alternatives, not just a high dollar alternative, but some less expensive ways of getting things fixed. They were on time. He was courteous. It was an average price.

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It worked fine ever since he left. The cost included everything. The price was fine. The workers were good and they did not make a mess. They did not really do much. They are okay. The main thing is it seems they are trying to push you to buy a new unit and I do not like that. If I had to, I would use them again. I probably would not go to them first.

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The salesman was very professional and gave us three bids over a two year period.

We meet Adam of Metro Air & Heat through our neighbors when he was doing work for them and we had a small issue with a vent. He was very helpful, resolving the issue quickly, so when our A/C went out we called him back for an estimate. We choose Metro for our new unit due to price (the lowest), referral from neighbors and responsiveness. Adam installed our new HVAC, cleaned up nicely and checked back to see if there were any problems. We would definitely recommend Metro Air & Heat.

unknown

I called at 7 o'clock. and they were out here at 8:30! It was wonderful. They had done this repair for us before.

They were pretty good other than the fact that the first people that came out working on it did not hook up the heater right. I had to call back and a guy had to come back out here and do two or three hours' work on the heater. Other than that the salesman was real nice and everything went well. Their price was competitive and I will use them again in the future.

I was less than impressed during the phone call, because the moment I told him the age of our system, he was fixated on getting us to replace it. I had to really insist that we wanted a carbon monoxide test. While we weren't against getting a new system, we have really cold temperatures predicted in the next couple of days and a 10 month old baby. Obviously, I'd like to avoid having heating work done on the coldest day of the year! He and his assistant showed up promptly. However, things went downhill from there. His carbon monoxide detector which actually showed numbers was broken and the one he had registered by speed of beeps approximately what level of leakage we had. Turned out we had a low level leak, as far as he could tell. So much for helpful information, since our detector had told us that much already. He looked briefly in the pipes, showed my husband the amount of rust (and there was a lot) and told us that we had to get a new system, period. From a liability standpoint, I can understand why he said what he did. That part, I don't hold against him. However, this part is where our relations with him really started to go sour. First, he did not do a heat load assessment, although he was required to by law. (We did not realize that at the time.) He did not look in our attic to check our ductwork. He did look at our outside a/c unit, and up in the pipes of our furnace, and that was it. We had to ask three times to get him to do the carbon monoxide assessment. He tried to sell us a 14 SEER Goodman system which runs on old style freon, and he really pushed it hard. When we told him that we were more interested in the 16 SEER system, he did everything he could to discourage us from buying it, telling us that the 14 was "more bang for the buck". He also misrepresented how the tax credit for an energy efficient unit could be applied. I'll cut him a little slack on that, since when I called my accountant to ask if he was right, my accountant had just gotten the reg and was studying it himself. What I did not like was that he gave us a hard sell and a bum's rush from the outset and he misrepresented several things. When I asked him how long we had to get the system replaced (trying to find out if we could at least have a day or two to take a couple more bids), he told me that it was within his right to shut the system down cold right then, since he knew it had a leak. I fully understood the system had to be replaced and why; I just did not care for the threat being made when I have a 10 month old baby and we had the coldest day of the winter predicted in two days. While again, I understand why he expressed the information from a liability point of view, the information was clearly given in a manner intended to force our hand and buy his system immediately. That didn't sit well. When I asked for more information about a more energy efficient 16 SEER system, he told me that we didn't want the 16; we wanted the 14. However, he didn't have any information comparing the systems, and apparently expected that we should just accept his word on that score. Nor, in his estimate, did he price out any additional insulation, ductwork repair, or anything else which would be needed to get the system running efficiently. (As it turns out, we also need additional insulation, we have a section of ductwork that is subpar and the collars around the vents need adjusting.) He made no mention of pulling permits, and told us that if we didn't act fast, we'd have to wait until next week. He also claimed that if we didn't hurry, we'd miss out on his 14 SEER old style freon systems, which according to him, were selling like hotcakes. I thought that was strange, since I'd heard other a/c companies on the radio stating that business was slow! Although he didn't charge us for the service call, and although he did not make good on his veiled threat to shut our heating system down (in the beginning of January, thank you!), he was clearly not terribly happy when we insisted we wanted to take time to review our options. We did some research and called him back with some questions. Again to his credit, he answered the phone promptly. My husband braced him with several questions about the 14 and 16 SEER systems, and explained that we plan to sell the house within 5 years, and if we could get the tax credit for the 16 SEER system, we'd have just a $400 difference. The guy kept responding by saying that the 14 was still the "most bang for the buck". Finally, my husband explained to him why it *wasn't*. As my husband put it to him, "If I buy a $3500 car for $3500, I just have a $3500 car. However, if I can buy a $5000 car for $3500, I've made a bargain." My husband also expressed our concern that more environmental regulations might be passed before we sold the house, and if we had a 16 SEER with the new freon system, we'd probably be in compliance, whereas we would not with an old style system. We also weren't at all sanguine about the possibility of getting parts after 10 years or so. At that point, the contractor finally confessed that he'd installed just six 16 SEER systems and found them to be too complicated, and claimed they had too many bells and whistles which were liable to break down and which, in one case, took him two days to get repaired. He also claimed his Goodman system was a top line product. He made it sound as if the 16 SEER systems had just come on the market, and that was why he was less than well versed with them. We have a friend who's a building contractor, so we called to get the dirt on Goodman, since neither of us had ever heard of it. Turned out that Goodman is a low-end model used by many tract contractors. It's not terrible, but it's not high end, either. It gets used because it's cheap and just barely meets guidelines. Also, 16 SEER systems have been out for several years. Finally, our contractor friend laughed when we told him about the 'going like hotcakes' comment - apparently, just as I suspected, it's been a really slow season for heating and a/c people. As best we can figure, what *really* happened was this. This contractor has a bunch of old style freon 14 SEER low end Goodman systems warehoused. He'd like to unload them, obviously, because if environmental regs tighten down still more, he may get stuck with them as unsalable inventory. He didn't want to do the 16 SEER not for the reasons he stated, but because he's not well versed with them. If we were a young couple with no experience in seeing through snow jobs, we probably would have fallen for it and ended up investing $4K in a cheap, crappy system, but having no other necessary work done to make the system really work as it should. Basically, we'd say he'll do a decent job for you if you've got a problem to be repaired. When we had compressor problems, he did show up fast and work well, and he was fine with the checkups we had him do. Both the compressor work and the checkups were reasonably priced. However, this isn't the guy to come to for a complete system. Caveat emptor.

Metro refused to take the job; very uncooperative.

THEY ARE WONDERFUL. THEY CAN DO ANYTHING YOU NEED THEM TO DO. THEIR CUSTOMER SERVICE IS EXCELLENT. THEIR WORK PERFORMED IS EXCELLENT. I REALLY LOVED THE REPAIR GUYS THEY SENT TO THE HOUSE. GREAT JOB.

THEY ARRIVED AS SOON AS POSSIBLE AND STAYED UNTIL THE PROBLEM WAS FIXED.